Youth in Nepal face considerable and credible challenges. They cannot achieve the life they aspire to. They do not have access to an even playing field. They see the doors to educational and employment opportunities rigged only for children from families with unimaginable wealth, much of which appears to have come from the plunder of public resources. They want scope for themselves and, we hope, are not willing to prosper at the expense of others, the way the regimes they criticise have. A big ask.
At the same time, they are immersed in social media, which both entertains them and links them to global worlds of consumer, social, and political possibility. Social media is the lifeline to young workers abroad, youthful entrepreneurs, and to educated but un- and underemployed youth at home. Nepali readers had failed to recognise this. The social media ban was quickly restored, but the damage was done by then.
The curb on media did not cause the protests on September 8 and 9, but it fuelled and shaped them. Leaders and participants drew explicit parallels to other protest movements they followed online in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with an if-they-can-do-it-so-can-we bravado. They waved flags of protest figures from manga, animé, and video games such as One Piece. Scope for creativity also drove the vibrant music video scene both in Nepal and the migrant diaspora. Unhappy young people appropriated hashtag trends from the Philippines and Indonesia to flood TikTok with #NepoBabies or #NepoKids campaigns, outing the names, faces, and luxury-flaunting images of rich kids and juxtaposing them with the suffering of ordinary people. They used social media platforms to publicise their plans for protests, and, then, to express anger and sadness, to disavow any role in the burning of public and private property, to celebrate their success in toppling a corrupt government, to poll for nominations for an interim prime minister, and to ask the youth to help clean up after the protests.
But social media is unruly. The online universe is dark: False information — whether panic-induced misinformation (like the reports, including in Newsweek, of the ex-PM Jhala Nath Khanal’s wife being burned alive) or AI-generated misinformation (like the images of the singularly important Pashupati Temple burning) — is rampant. Untraceable and uncorrectable, it reproduces itself in bottomless scroll-pits.
This, of course, was part of the government’s original rationale for wanting to register social media, non-compliance with which apparently led to the blanket ban. However, this virtual world of anonymous and uncensored hyper-individuality is perversely democratic: Anyone can hold any opinion; anyone can post (almost) anything, but the alternative, of having someone or some algorithm able to determine who can say what, is equally ominous.
Amidst this, the question of who was and is in control remains paramount. The Army had reestablished peace on the streets, and instead of moving toward a royalist coup as some feared, a new caretaker government has been instituted. Karki was sworn in as an interim PM on September 12. The legislature was dissolved, and new ministers were appointed, with a mandate to hold elections for a new government within six months. Although there is considerable support for Karki, multiple forces — the political parties and the deposed national representatives, and possibly long-disgraced royalists, who question its constitutionality and the legitimacy of the Gen-Z representatives — are mobilising.
Online chat rooms and trending hashtags are good for voicing grievances, but not for negotiating a government. Since it was the political parties who gained the most from the 1990 and 2006 changes, it must now be the parties who redefine themselves if there is to be meaningful change in the governance of Nepal. The energy and patriotism of Gen-Z demanding a government that is not there exclusively to line its own pockets has awakened the conscience of the nation, and it must continue to do so.
Among the goals must be financial accountability, and a renewed commitment to caste, ethnic, and gender inclusiveness in not just political, but also social, educational, and economic opportunities. These were the forces that drove the 1990 and 2006 movements in the country, and their importance must be renewed by Gen-Z. The fissures that ruptured in the earlier protest movements are still there, and now, a Hindu nationalist backlash is growing.
The best chance for Gen-Zs to stop today’s parties from acting like the self-serving totalitarians they replaced and begin representing all their constituents’ needs may well lie in converting the youth wings of the parties themselves. Social media networks and the know-how of engaged Gen-Zers would serve well both to identify likely allies and to convert more. It would be the most important metamorphosis in Nepal’s history: From a country run by and for elite special interests to one run by and for the people.
Nepal surprised the world when its 10-year civil war ended in a peaceful settlement and a joint government by the warring parties. Maybe it can sustain the momentum to make it a new country of transparent governance and inclusive opportunity. As I say, a big ask.
The writer is Professor Emerita, Anthropology, Feminist Studies, and Public Affairs, Cornell University
